“The Hound of the Baskervilles”

Adaptations allow for modernizations of texts. The Elementaryepisode titled “Hounded” adds a unique and new spin to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novel The Hound of the Baskervilles.

In the beginning of the episode, we see Sir Charles Baskerville running in fear from an unknown creature until he looks back to see what it is, falls into the street, and gets hit by a semitruck. The death of Sir Charles leads to the idea that a suspicious, unnatural being is haunting the Baskerville name and fortune. This allows for Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to take on the case of the Baskerville mansion from Henry Baskerville, Charles’s brother.

Elementary took a different spin on the traditional characters when casting for the show. Instead of the typical Caucasian male taking on the infamous role of Dr. Watson, Lucy Liu, an Asian-American actress, was cast as this leading role. This casting choice allowed for diversity in a cast that typically consists of mostly white males aside from love interests or potential victims. This decision allows for female empowerment and more people to relate to this show—it shows that women can be doctors, as smart as men, and take on a role that is usually male. This is also significant because Dr. Watson can now see things from a female point of view, which can provide insights a male may have missed. It was also nice to see that she does not play as a love interest to Holmes and that they keep their relationship strictly business unlike a lot of other male-female partnerships. Lucy Liu portrayed Dr. Watson in a great way and made the show even more enjoyable.

A main aspect of this episode was Holmes conversing with the mortician, M.E. Hawes, about his previous traumatic encounter with the bombing at the morgue. Personally, I did not like that this played such a big role in it because I had never seen an episode of Elementarybefore. However, I could see how it is important to keeping a storyline throughout a couple of episodes or a season and the development of Sherlock’s character. Typically, Sherlock is seen as intelligent but arrogant, however in this episode he is very compassionate with M.E. Hawes and what he went through. Holmes takes the time to leave the crime scene from the Baskerville case to play chess and talk with Hawes to make sure he is okay even when Holmes knows he is not. This shows that Holmes cares about than just himself and wants to make sure the people in his life are okay.

Another big modernization of the Hound of the Baskervillesepisode of Elementarywas the use of technology. Technology is used in this episode to captivate a younger audience who is more technologically savvy, help Holmes and Dr. Watson find suspects and catch the criminal, and put a spin on who the hound is. Using a green screen and other technology throughout the episode allowed for the directors to create a dog that could light up green when in a dark room. Seeing this threw off Sherlock and Watson when starting their investigation of who the Baskerville killer was because they believed the dog to be the “hound”. Instead, the “hound” ended up being a government issued robot that lights up and can be controlled from any location. This added to making this adaptation different from the novel because in the novel the “hound” is actually a dog, which personally I preferred over the robot version.I give this episode a 4-star rating because it captivated my attention throughout the forty minutes. The episode also stayed true to the original plotline of the book, but it had a lot of changes throughout, especially with the big plot twist at the end of the story. This made me appreciate the parts stay true to the novel, but also had me completely shocked when parts differed. This also made the story suspenseful throughout. I appreciated how Dr. Watson was female in this adaptation instead of the typical white male. I was super shocked when who I predicted to be the killer was not the killer, and I was confused as to why the mortician was such a big focus. Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this episode of The Hound of the Baskervilleseven with the modernization.